Weekend Activities

It was a typical Spring weekend: busy. Pardon the photo quality – these were taken with my iPhone, not our fancy camera.

Thursday night I noticed that the carpet in the spare bedroom (in the basement) was wet. Very wet. Conveniently nothing was damaged. Friday night we cleaned the room out, moved the server rack, and ‘s dad brought over a large fan to start the process of drying out.

You can't really tell, because it's carpet, but there's a lot of water there.It's not supposed to be multi-colored.The more it "dried," the more the carpet was stained. Joy.

Saturday morning, we went to the previously-mentioned turf care [free] seminar at Bachman’s. Very cool. Only six people showed up, so we basically got our own personalized recommendations. We picked up some lawn care products (and purple fountain grass for ), and then stopped to rent a Champion Chem-Dry carpet cleaner on the way home.

After lunch, we decided to get some yard work done. We got the back yard raked (the north side, not the south garden), met our new neighbors (very nice, young couple like us, no kids, and they’re not flipping it), and cleaned out the gutters on that side of the house. While around the corner (towards the front of the house), I noticed that the downspout was not actually connected to the gutter, and it was clogged. This happens to be right above the flooded room.

fixed the downspout (a temporary fix until we get new gutters, which are a tad pricey, though they come with a lifetime guarantee), and then he realized something. Last summer, as we dug up rocks from the numerous gardens, we dumped them in front of the house where some ugly bushes used to be (those got ripped out early on). Perhaps, he thought, the pile of rocks, sitting the way it was, provided a nice conduit for rainwater to go towards the house, instead of away.

So, he got to digging.Lots and lots of digging. Many wheelbarrows of rocks. (I contributed by carting the rocks to the new storage spot. And by taking these pictures. And providing moral support.)Until finally the ground sloped down, away from the house. A level was used to be sure.

It is not fun to realize that you may have contributed to the flooding of your own basement. But, on the bright side, we won’t make that mistake again. (The rocks were piled up on the driveway this time, far away from the house.)

While we were outside, I decided to take a picture of Cornelius, our rooster statue. What, don't you have a rooster statue? Prince Charming's dad gave him to us, and we love him. We find the idea of roosters (used as decoration) incredibly humorous. This guy stands over two feet high, and has his own pedastal! He might be cooler than our neighbor's griffins (yes, plural).

There's no rest for the weary. Before taking a break, we had to get started on that carpet situation (the cleaner had to be returned by noon Sunday).Prince Charming did the whole flooded area once with just plain water, which helped a great deal. Then the fan went back on.

Later that night, we cleared the hallway and floors in the rest of the basement, and cleaned the carpet (with product this time, not straight water) in the whole basement. When you’ve paid for a steam cleaner, you might as well get your money out of it.

I did a lot of homework on Sunday. That back one is the "big" paper for my ELL class that's due in two weeks. Then my case study, and two copies of my strategy log (which were finished Friday, but weren't bound until Sunday).

Sunday I also got seeds started for our vegetable garden, and ‘s dad helped him hang the cabinet in his office (one step closer to being finished). After dinner I made two batches of lemon bars: one with the “ultimate” recipe I linked to on Friday, and one straight out of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (but I used lime juice and zest instead of lemon*).

I bought books for the summer semester today. There are no traditional (read: expensive) textbooks, so the bookstore price was $63-66 (only one was available used) total. However, I don’t buy my textbooks from the school bookstore (unless I have to). My Amazon total, with shipping, for the four books (all used) was $36.24. That makes me happy. Hopefully I will plan my fall semester far enough in advance to have those books delivered well before the start of classes (though there’s no announcement as to when that course data will be uploaded to the bookstore website).

After tonight’s class, I should know exactly how much homework I have left for the semester. I think it’s just lesson plans and an end of semester reflection, but it might be that I have to prepare a presentation on my bilingualism paper. The professor hasn’t talked about that at all yet, so… who knows what will happen. I’m just glad the paper is done. It’s quite boring, so I’m not sure what I’ll do if I have to give a presentation on it.

That means I can make plans with friends! Oh my! And I’ve promised myself that I’ll be homework-free in California, which should work out unless my professor assigns any homework next Monday (since I fly out less than 12 hours after class ends, and don’t return until about 24 hours before the next, and final, class).

*Note: lime juice doesn’t color the bars green – they stay yellow. Plus, the lime zest turns a bit brown in the baking, so it looks like I made an herbed egg bake. However, they taste absolutely divine. I haven’t tasted the ultimate lemon ones yet, since they still had to cool and it was time to go to bed. I’ll update you later on that, but I will note now that I had difficulty making the lemon curd.